Success Story

Progress

Progress toward Oregon’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Goals

The Oregon Strategy for Greenhouse Gas Reductions (2004) lists actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reduction estimates for those actions in the year 2025. In A Framework for Addressing Rapid Climate Change (2008), an assessment was made as to which of these actions were “in place” (i.e., legislated or otherwise being implemented); “in progress” (i.e., on their way to being put in place); or inactive. Based on this assessment, the estimated impacts in 2025 (relative to the “business as usual” emission forecast) of actions now in place, and a hypothetical estimate if all the actions “in progress” come to fruition, are plotted in the figure below. By using 2010 as a starting point for reductions (a reasonable simplification), and examining the slope of the “emissions trajectories” between estimated emissions in the years 2010 and 2025, it can be seen by virtue of the policies now “in place” that Oregon appears to be on track to meet its first goal of arresting the growth of greenhouse gas emissions by 2010. However, it can also be seen that even if all the actions now “in progress” are completed by 2020, the state will likely fall well short of meeting its 2020 emission reduction goal, and, by extrapolation, clearly is not on track to meet its 2050 goal. In fact, it is likely that without additional actions put in place by 2025, the emissions trajectory will begin rising, because the impact of key reduction policies will have peaked by that time period.